Positive Contributions and Future Opportunities

Together with our distribution partner Qontigo we hosted another engaging roundtable, this time in the Big Apple.

With a packed room spanning institutional asset managers, banks, faith-based investors, and public and private pensions, attendees sparked a diverse conversation on trends and common challenges around integrating SDGs and measuring positive contributions, and how the AOP founders like APG and PGGM are accelerating adoption of the asset-owner governed taxonomy.

Participants exchanged views around financial materiality, challenges in sourcing suitable datasets to fulfill sustainable objectives, decomposing risk and impact while measuring progress of outcomes, and ultimately translating SDGs and other sustainable investment frameworks into a common vernacular that global investors can understand and leverage.

PGGM’s Hans Op t Veld, APG’s Terhi Halme and the SDI AOP’s research director James Leaton, in turn, provided insights into how the AOP translates SDGs into actionable investments, the construction and governance of the taxonomy’s methodology and ongoing research efforts, the driving motivation behind forming an asset owner-led initiative and network, new modules like the Innovation Outlook, and impending enhancements to the platform.  

The hosts also described how current members – including PGGM and APG themselves – leverage the dataset across asset classes and various use cases, from engagement to portfolio construction to sustainable investments reporting.